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A call for a peaceful protest against the formation of an anti-native “militia” in Caledonia

A call for a peaceful protest against the formation of an anti-native
“militia” in Caledonia – Tuesday, June 23rd at 6pm Outside the Lion’s
Club in Cayuga, Ontario.

Dear Friends,

As you may have heard in the mainstream media already, things are
escalating again in Caledonia. Doug Fleming (an associate of
anti-native sovereignty activist Gary McHale) has announced that he is
now forming a “militia” to directly confront “native lawlessness” in
Caledonia. According to Fleming, the militia would patrol areas in
Caledonia by car and by foot wearing uniforms and communicating with
radio equipment. If alerted to an instance of “native lawlessness” the
militia would then use “reasonable force” to effect a citizen’s arrest
and would hold the native person until such time as the OPP arrived to
take the “prisoner” to jail.

Needless to say, this represents a major escalation in regard to the
conflict at Six Nations. In addition to the OPP having already laid
over 120 charges against Six Nations activists, the formation of this
militia — with a primary target of removing “illegal” native “smoke
shacks” near Caledonia — points directly to the increasing of the
possibility of violent conflict between natives and non-natives.
Fleming has called for a public meeting for founding of the militia to
happen on June 23, at 7 p.m., at the Lion’s Hall in Cayuga. The
announcement of the formation of the militia has received widespread
publicity in the mainstream media. (Links to the coverage can be found
below).

Although Gary McHale and his supporters have avoided making public
racist comments towards natives, there is no doubt that the formation
of the militia will draw explicitly racist individuals who have long
wanted to physically confront native protesters into activity.
Neo-Nazi groups have long participated in McHale’s various protests
since at least the fall of 2006, and there is every likelihood that
they will be drawn to this meeting if they are not already involved in
organizing it.

Put simply, this meeting cannot be allowed to happen unopposed. As
non-natives who have long supported indigenous struggles in general
and the Six Nations struggle in particular, we are issuing a call for
all who are opposed to escalation and violence inherent in Flemming’s
call for a “Caledonia Militia” to peacefully protest the holding of
this meeting.

Transportation to the protest will be organized by activists in
Toronto, Hamilton, Kitchener-Waterloo and Guelph. Please contact3903fnswg@gmail.com for more information, to endorse the protest, or
to reserve a space on the buses. Buses will be leaving from Toronto at
4:30pm sharp (from the north-east corner of the Dufferin Mall parking lot) and should return by 10pm that night at the latest. You
must contact us over email to reserve a space on the bus. Please
reserve a spot immediately so we can get a sense of how many people
require transport. There is a suggested donation to help cover the
cost of transport is $10 although no-one will be turned away for lack
of funds.

http://www.stormfront.org/forum/showthread.php?t=604501 This is the world’s most popular English-language neo-Nazi website. Here is a discussion thread that is discussing McHale’s various activities and protests in Caledonia and provides some information about neo-Nazi participation in them.

http://www.caledoniawakeupcall.com/election/ElectionResults.pdf And in case you thought that McHale was simply an irrelevant right-wing agitator, here is a link to the federal election results from last year when he ran as an independent candidate in Haldimand Norfolk. As the results indicate, he polled 10% of the riding’s votes, nearly getting 5000 votes (neck and neck with the NDP, and double the Green party votes). He won most of the polls in the non-native communities near to Six Nations, indicating that he has a significant base of anti-native support there.

About

The fnswg is a body of CUPE 3903, TAs, contract faculty and graduate assistants at York University. The First Nations Solidarity Working Group mandate:

To educate and organize the CUPE 3903 membership about issues relating to matters of indigenous sovereignty and solidarity and to encourage membership participation both within the caucus and the local in general on this issue.

To work within and to help build rank and file networks of union activists working on issues of indigenous solidarity and solidarity.

To co-ordinate efforts in support of indigenous sovereignty with other local, regional and national (union and non-union) projects in support of indigenous sovereignty and solidarity.

To actively participate in supporting indigenous struggles such as (but not limited to) the Six Nations land reclamation.